"My economic decline started a long time ago," Fugazzie said. "This isn't a new thing for me."

The networking and support group, founded in Bergen County in January 2011, after Fugazzie himself was put out of work, has forged 360 success stories from its weekly meetings in local libraries. But the challenges remain, in a transformed job market where many who do find work land with fewer hours or less pay.

Fugazzie hopes to speak from his local experience with U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, whom representatives of Neighbors Helping Neighbors will be meeting along with two other jobless groups based in Virginia and Maryland.

"We're going to talk about the kinds of barriers, the kinds of things that are hurting the long-term unemployed," he said. "The job situation is not going to get solved by one party or the other. This is a national crisis and it impacts more than the people who are out of work."

Politics will loom large in the backdrop of the Washington meeting, however. The White House is pushing this week for a new three-month extension of emergency unemployment benefits, as Republicans on Capitol Hill call for any extension to be offset by other spending cuts.

And those statistics don't touch the true number of people struggling in the job market, Fugazzie says. Unemployment is often undercounted by the government, which tallies those receiving benefits but not those who are underemployed or have fallen out of the job market entirely.

Moreover, the cuts in benefits will likely dampen the spending needed to maintain an economy inching toward recovery, Fugazzie contends. And the loss of benefits ramps up the pressure on those already struggling to find work.

"The issue is silly – that they're not together on this one," he said. "It's an economic stimulus plan. Unemployed people put the money immediately back into the marketplace. And it's mostly for food."